Cyberabad Police arrested five people allegedly running call-centres to lure youth through dating websites and defraud them of money.
The police apprehended Debasish Mukherjee, Faijul Haq, Anita Dey, Sandeep Mitra and Neetha Shanker from Silguri in West Bengal. According to the police, Mukherjee hired women as telecallers for running the call-centres that identify and call young men, promising to connect to women as dates and escorts.
In one such case, a victim from the city approached the police with a complaint that he was defrauded of ₹15.19 lakh since May.
The police also said that the prime accused Mukherjee ran 20 call centres and branches in Siliguri and Kolkata, gradually expanding operations to rest of India.